Bridging cultural gaps with the help of friends
Hello! Thank you for cheering me up last week when I was blue that I had to accept my destiny to leave New York City.
I am now in a hotel room in Tokyo with a mini-kitchen and a washing machine. I flew out of JFK International Airport on the afternoon of March 24 and arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on the evening of the 25th, only 6 hours before the Japanese government started requiring travelers from the United States to self-quarantine for 14 days. Although I am not officially required to self-quarantine, I decided to do it, as I had been doing in New York.
My first cooking back in Japan was pasta with tomato sauce, starting with chopping garlic.
Last week, I wrote about friends who received items I had to leave in the city. I said see-you-again to them with air hugs. On my departure day, I managed to see three friends.
Dr. Lee Hyun-Jun, my Korean sister
At 10 a.m., Dr. Lee Hyun-Jun, a literary scholar who was a neighbor, came to my building entrance to help me with “whatever Ayako-san needs.” She was wearing a mask and gloves, the new uniform of New Yorkers. She is a brilliant woman who studies how Koreans developed a new form of dance-art during the Japanese colonization in the early 20th century and is on one-year sabbatical from her university in Hokakido, Japan. She often helped me understand modern Korean politics and society, interpreting Korean immigrant media in New York. She had offered to help me pack, but I couldn’t say yes because my landlady, Jane, and I had decided to keep any visitor away from the apartment door to stay 100 percent safe, just as many New Yorkers are doing.
I couldn’t believe I was leaving. Hyun-Jun said the same. We always spoke in Japanese because her Japanese was perfect and we sometimes wanted to talk in a language not many people around us would understand. I am sure the doorman thought she was Japanese, as he knew I was. Hyun-Jun once said she had wondered if she should stay in New York City, as the situation was growing worse and worse. But on that day, she said she would definitely stay. “I am sad that I cannot go out much on this hard-earned sabbatical after almost 20 years of dedicating myself to study,” she said. “Yet it is better than going back early. Once I go back, the same opportunity never comes again.” I love how hard-working she is
Dr. Lee Hyun-Jun watched my luggage while I was saying see-you to my landlady.
Abu Taher, a super gentleman
It was a relay of friends. At 10:40 a.m., the hero of the day, Abu Taher arrived. What an honor to get a ride to the airport from the publisher and editor of Bangla Patrika, a 24-year-old Bengali-language paper and Time Television, a 5-year-old Bengali-language TV station! It was a beautiful day for a drive.
As Abu Taher drove me to the airport.
I asked him how the coronavirus pandemic was affecting his business. I realized in my last interviews with him that he is cool with any type of questions. He doesn’t mind what my intention is. He really faces all the questions without putting on airs.
“It is very bad,” he said. “Our company doesn’t have any other revenue stream than advertising. You saw the Bangladesh supermarket that ordered a commercial video, right? Those middle-to-small businesses are withdrawing all the ad money. Most of the Bangladesh community companies are small, and the first thing they stop is advertising.”
I asked how long he could keep paying salaries. “Probably a few weeks,” he said. He has 24 employees, which makes him a hero in the immigrant media industry. His staff members are all versatile, like reporter-director, cameraman-editor or reporter-cameraman, and fun! He mentioned that he might have to start thinking about downsizing. “It is going to be worse than the 2008 crisis,” he said. “That crisis didn’t affect our business much because our community was comparatively independent from major American bank financing. This time, it is more real.”
Abu Taher's staff cameraman and a reporter shooting a commercial video for a local supermarket in Queens, on January 29th.
Motomi, an old friend from Nara, my hometown
Abu Taher made my wish come true. Before I left New York, I wanted to see my old friend Motomi, even for a little while. He took me to her neighborhood, a three-hour walk from mine. We hadn’t been able to meet for a while after we started to stay home in March. Motomi and I went to the same junior high and high school in Nara City, Japan. We were both in a basketball club and then went to high schools in New Zealand to broaden our horizons. Motomi then flew to Europe to study architecture in Paris, and furniture and product design in Helsinki, before coming to New York in 2009. She loved the city, and every time I visited New York to film, she kept telling me to come live there.
She now runs an architecture firm with a partner. On my arrival, she guided me through real life in New York. I like the way she balances maintaining her Japanese-ness with enjoying professional life in New York. When Abu Taher pulled the car over, she came up and gave me many air hugs and ran to see us off.
It felt like a temporary leavetaking also because we cannot properly hug each other now.
Motomi giving me an air hug. In the background are customers lined up to go into a supermarket.
Cultural gaps I felt in Tokyo
Back in Shibuya, one of Tokyo’s downtowns, where I booked a hotel, I felt as if I were the only person being so careful about possible virus infection. I still wore gloves and touched nothing until I got to the hotel.
-Things I saw in New York but not in Tokyo from March 25 to 30: gloves, social distancing and frustrated people.
-Things I saw in Tokyo and not in New York; many people with masks, very clean floors and streets, people drinking in bars.
However, Tokyo’s governor announced the day after my arrival that the government was going to ask people to stay home for the weekend. People started to buy a lot of food. Wait, am I having deja vu? The only difference is that people in Tokyo stand in line without saying a word. I felt bored and a bit insecure standing in a line at a Japanese supermarket after half a year away. I felt like asking the person next to me, “How long are you planning to survive on this food?” I thought back to shopping in New York at the beginning of March. An African-American lady next to me said, “A week. It’s not so much as it looks. I bought a few ready-prepared foods.” The U.S. was still peaceful back then.
An empty meat shelf at a Tokyo supermarket. March 27.
I feel I had a great experience living in the U.S. as a minority. Being a minority meant I had to find a place in the society, which hadn’t been designed for someone like me. It meant I had to assert my rights but also be careful in choosing my fights. Being a minority means you know where you come from, but you wonder where you belong. That’s what I learned from my own experience and from dear New Yorkers in my seven months.
Now it feels hard to adjust myself to Japanese society and culture after all the time I spent so much energy on adjusting to the American environment.
”Friends help me adjust”
Jane, my landlady and great mentor, gave me a great piece of advice before my departure. “Do you have someone to pick you up at the airport or someone you can meet soon?” she asked. “No,” I said, “I wasn’t thinking about it, as I have been socially distancing from people and busy saying see-you to people here.” “Well,” she said, “Japan is your home country, but you will find it difficult to get back to life there after you have lived here for half a year and focused so much on joining communities here. It is normal, and I experienced that when I came back from England. So, to make the landing easier, you will want to plan to meet or talk to your friends.”
So I did! Thank you, friends, for seeing me and talking to me this week. I still feel in between the two cultures, Tokyo and New York. I want to learn to be good at balancing the two.
My first Japanese cherry blossoms of the year. March 25.
This newsletter has mainly talked about Covid-19 and my experience around it. I think immigrant media are going through a very difficult time. When they and I are both ready, I am going to get back to their interviews. I may not be able to write weekly anymore, as I am going back to work next week. But I will do my best.
The battle against Covid-19 is going to be long and foggy. But let's be hopeful and realistic.
Thank you for reading!
Ayako Takada
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